Holiday Function: ‘Giving thanks to the One who made and maintains us’

ROCKWALL/HEATH, TX (Nov. 24, 2014) It’s time to dust off the turkey platter and polish the silver. But wait…we can use the casual dinnerware. No need for silver spoons.

I’m good with laid-back gatherings on Thanksgiving Day. My growing-up years featured holiday dinners laid out in the garage, with tables lined up cafeteria-style to hold all the dishes and desserts brought in by an extended family that included 21 cousins. We might have eaten from paper plates too, though I can’t recall.

I don’t expect my family to get fancy for holidays, but I have requested decent apparel when we lived in a warmer climate where leaves don’t fall until spring growth pushes them off. One year I told my family: “No shorts for Thanksgiving dinner; please dress appropriately.” Our youngest son arrived at the table wearing an American Indian outfit he’d made in history class.

“Life is too short,” as my mother always said (and still says, since she’s enjoying a good, long life). Maybe that’s why I’m not a stickler for holiday form. But function? That’s another matter.

The Thanksgiving holiday serves a purpose that I don’t want the world to obscure. Our nation once set aside this day to “join together in praising the Creator and Preserver…for the blessings that have been our common lot”, in the words proclaimed by former Connecticut Governor Wilbur L. Cross “in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and thirty six”.

Instead we now hear socially-correct messages telling us to thank those who serve us in some way. Or else we’re encouraged to be thankful—passive tense. These bland sentiments strike me as robbing God.

Though we could certainly give thanks for those who serve us, we should direct our thanks to the One who made and maintains us. And though most of us have much to be thankful for (passive), it is highly appropriate to give thanks (active) to our Father in heaven.

The Bible says: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…” (James 1:17, ESV).

As Governor Cross eloquently stated, God has provided, “all the creature comforts: the yield of the soil that has fed us and the richer yield from labor of every kind that has sustained our lives…”

Every perfect gift.

By Blue Ribbon News guest columnist Patti Richter of Heath.